Happiness and the Human Development Index: Australia is not a paradox
In “Happiness and the Human Development Index: The Paradox of Australia,” Blanchflower and Oswald (2005) observe an apparent puzzle: they claim that Australia ranks highly in the Human Development Index (HDI), but relatively poorly in happiness. However, when we compare their happiness data with the...
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ftanucanberra:oai:digitalcollections.anu.edu.au:1885/43248 2023-05-15T16:49:32+02:00 Happiness and the Human Development Index: Australia is not a paradox Leigh, Andrew Wolfers, Justin 2006-03-03 bytes application/pdf application/octet-stream http://hdl.handle.net/1885/43248 http://digitalcollections.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/43248 en_AU eng Blackwell Publishing Ltd 0004-9018 http://hdl.handle.net/1885/43248 http://digitalcollections.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/43248 The Australian Economic Review Human Development Index life satisfaction Working/Technical Paper 2006 ftanucanberra 2015-12-14T23:18:27Z In “Happiness and the Human Development Index: The Paradox of Australia,” Blanchflower and Oswald (2005) observe an apparent puzzle: they claim that Australia ranks highly in the Human Development Index (HDI), but relatively poorly in happiness. However, when we compare their happiness data with the HDI, Australia appears happier, not sadder, than its HDI score would predict. This conclusion also holds when we turn to a larger cross-national dataset than the one used by Blanchflower and Oswald, when we analyse life satisfaction in place of happiness, and when we measure development using GDP per capita in place of the HDI. Indeed, in the World Values Survey, only one other country (Iceland) has a significantly higher level of both life satisfaction and happiness than Australia. Our findings accord with numerous cross-national surveys conducted since the 1940s, which have consistently found that Australians report high levels of wellbeing. Report Iceland Australian National University: ANU Digital Collections |
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Australian National University: ANU Digital Collections |
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ftanucanberra |
language |
English |
topic |
Human Development Index life satisfaction |
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Human Development Index life satisfaction Leigh, Andrew Wolfers, Justin Happiness and the Human Development Index: Australia is not a paradox |
topic_facet |
Human Development Index life satisfaction |
description |
In “Happiness and the Human Development Index: The Paradox of Australia,” Blanchflower and Oswald (2005) observe an apparent puzzle: they claim that Australia ranks highly in the Human Development Index (HDI), but relatively poorly in happiness. However, when we compare their happiness data with the HDI, Australia appears happier, not sadder, than its HDI score would predict. This conclusion also holds when we turn to a larger cross-national dataset than the one used by Blanchflower and Oswald, when we analyse life satisfaction in place of happiness, and when we measure development using GDP per capita in place of the HDI. Indeed, in the World Values Survey, only one other country (Iceland) has a significantly higher level of both life satisfaction and happiness than Australia. Our findings accord with numerous cross-national surveys conducted since the 1940s, which have consistently found that Australians report high levels of wellbeing. |
format |
Report |
author |
Leigh, Andrew Wolfers, Justin |
author_facet |
Leigh, Andrew Wolfers, Justin |
author_sort |
Leigh, Andrew |
title |
Happiness and the Human Development Index: Australia is not a paradox |
title_short |
Happiness and the Human Development Index: Australia is not a paradox |
title_full |
Happiness and the Human Development Index: Australia is not a paradox |
title_fullStr |
Happiness and the Human Development Index: Australia is not a paradox |
title_full_unstemmed |
Happiness and the Human Development Index: Australia is not a paradox |
title_sort |
happiness and the human development index: australia is not a paradox |
publisher |
Blackwell Publishing Ltd |
publishDate |
2006 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/1885/43248 http://digitalcollections.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/43248 |
genre |
Iceland |
genre_facet |
Iceland |
op_source |
The Australian Economic Review |
op_relation |
0004-9018 http://hdl.handle.net/1885/43248 http://digitalcollections.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/43248 |
_version_ |
1766039664087531520 |